Everything You Need To Know About Black Friday
Growth spurt: America’s national buying holiday—and retail tenant crucible—now reels in roughly 80% of the population, at least according to the National Retail Federation. Last year, the NRF reported that 249M shoppers partook. (Note that the trade association defines Black Friday as Thanksgiving through Sunday.) That number has nearly doubled from 132M in 2005.
Competition: Despite the media hysteria surrounding Black Friday, the Saturday before Christmas often outranks it as the year's biggest shopping day. In fact, between ’97 and ’99 (and again in ’01), Black Friday didn’t even rank in the top five.
In the black: Shoppers reportedly spent $61.4B last year over Thanksgiving weekend, which typically constitutes as much as 15% of all holiday sales.
Origins: Researchers agree that the term “Black Friday” was coined in Philly (in reference to the migraine-induced foul moods it produced in local merchants and traffic cops) and made its first print appearance in Public Relations News in 1961.
Alternative histories: Speaking of PR, the spin that Black Friday referred to ledgers being “in the black “ rather than municipal dread probably took hold in the ‘80s. (Philly officials had rallied and failed to change it to Big Friday.)
Offshoots: E-commerce got in on the branding game in 2005 when it came up with Cyber Monday to denote steep online sales just after the holiday weekend. Total sales for the day have nearly tripled since, to $1.74B last year.
Expansion: Aggressive big box stores have also come up with "Gray Thursday" and begun opening their stores on Thanksgiving. And it's stolen some of Black Friday's thunder: the Times reported that sales were down 13.2% last year, while Gray Thursday did well.
Backlash: Easily dismissed as a celebration of American excess, Black Friday criticism reached a fever pitch in 2008 when a Long Island Walmart employee was trampled to death during the early morning customer rush. The rise of Gray Thursday has also caused outrage—keeping stores open on Thanksgiving is illegal in some states, including Massachusetts. Workers from 1,600 Walmart stores plan to strike next Friday.
Bottom line: Despite harsh criticism, Black Friday (and, increasingly, Thanksgiving) offers irresistible holiday markdowns to consumers—61% of shoppers in an ICSC poll ranked sales as the main factor leading them to a specific store. The day is also a time for physical stores to outshine digital competition: 40% of people in the same poll said the ability to see and touch merchandise was their primary holiday shopping concern.
